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Robert sits at the table playing the guitar, fingering his way hesitantly through a piece in a book of guitar studies. On the table is a pile of books he brought with him. There are volumes of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, De Quincey's Recollections of the Lake Poets, a book about Morecambe Bay. Vanessa leans forward in her chair and stirs the embers in the grate. The fire has burned right down and it is getting cold in the room. It is nearly midnight however, so she doesn't put any more coal on the fire. Instead she gets up and puts on the electric fan heater. Robert puts down his guitar.